I Am My Own Worst Idiot

Los Angeles, California

Ever seen Albert Brooks' film, Defending Your Life? There is a scene during his hearing to defend his life where his prosecutor runs a reel displaying times during his life when things went wrong. A few have to do with power tools, and one, if memory serves, has him falling off the roof while attempting to fix his TV antenna (shows you how old that movie is). I often think about that scene. It was hilariously funny when I first saw it. And frankly, it reminded me of Billy, who could have a reel of his own like that, for example: putting extra spark-arresting screens on the chimney of our first home so that smoke backed up into our freshly-painted living room; dropping a bottle of Eau Savage cologne into the toilet of our apartment, while it was flushing, causing it to lodge and ultimately causing the toilet to have to be removed and replaced; shipping our clothes to the Kona Village so they would arrive on Sunday, except there is no FedEx delivery on Sunday and he didn't pack any back-up clothes (as had I, smugly) to get him through the next day-and-a-half. Please stop me here, because I got a million of 'em.

This is not to say that I don't do similarly mindless things myself. Believe me, I do. It's just that it's more fun to recount the things that Billy has done over the decades we have been together. However. However, lately I have been saying and doing a lot of idiotic things. And I thought, for a change, I would focus on a few of my own stumbles.

Now, of course salsa dance is going to be in this litany, because it's something I do. A lot. It's a jungle out there on the dance floor, and we've all been hit, kicked, and stepped on. I have caused some damage myself, though not generally by stepping on people because I no longer take those large steps that mark the beginning stage of all salseros. And I don't have big feet; I'm more or less average-sized. Also, I don't wear spike heels which can really do some damage, as in the case of my friend, Joy, who fell on the dance floor (it happens), and then had someone skewer her hand with a spike heel. Yikes. And I'm smart enough to stay away from a certain salsera who allegedly slaps other salseras deliberately. She came to salsa by way of roller derby, we think. But here is what I did Tuesday night: I stepped on my own foot. Yep. I don't know how I did it, but one of my feet got under the other, and I stepped down fairly hard. Ouch, and how stupid is that?

I also notice that as I get older, my tongue occasionally gets tied, or my thoughts become verbalized before I have a chance to run them through my brain's filter. Case-on-point when recently Billy and I were talking about North Korea's ability to shoot an armed missile at the US. I had remarked that if they can only reach Texas (as I had heard on NPR), what were we so worried about? Even judging only by the political figures who have come out of Texas, I think Texas is, more or less, well, expendable? But then Billy said that they didn't have that range, but that they could probably reach Hawaii. Hawaii? I exclaimed. That's ridiculous! Who would attack Hawaii? Who indeed? I've always thought geography was one of my weakest areas of knowledge; but evidently history is creeping up.

Lastly, I was hanging out with my salsera frister, Carol, last week when I uttered a phrase in response to feeling overwhelmed: My eyes will turn to pinmeals. Now, I'm not sure if I was hungry at the time, or if my tongue twisted, or if I just decided to turn that W upside-down to an M. Regardless of reason, we got a good laugh out of it, and it became part of our lexicon for that day, and beyond.

Mind you, I am only sharing a few recent faux pas(es?). The older, and more stressed I get, the more I lose things; say ridiculous things, and display that non-discriminatory curse of aging--forgetting things. Actually, the items on that list shouldn't all be attributed to age. For, I have always lost things since I was a little kid. I recently left my favorite coat behind at the Canary Hotel in Santa Barbara. We phoned when we arrived in Carmel, our next stop on the trip and the place where I really needed the coat. Luckily, they did recover it. But the stories of backtracking in an attempt to retrieve things (and, happily, usually successfully) that I have left behind is pretty-much legendary amongst Billy and my inner-circle fristers.

Maybe I get scattered because I spend a lot of time writing. Not, sitting-down-at-the-computer, or with my journal on my lap, writing, but in-my-head writing. I love words. I love combining them into sentences. I love the play of them. So, I guess it's not such a stretch that I would try to create my own language, with the first word being pinmeals. It will be an interesting, vocabulary-driven language. One with no real structure nor grammar. It won't be easy to learn. Don't even try. If you do, it will, most certainly, turn your eyes to pinmeals. You must trust me about this. Thanks for reading my blog, and if you are from Texas, I apologize. Kinda...